Walker left Marquette without graduating, to pursue business opportunities. In some ways, not a surprise that someone who did not stay to complete a degree evaluates a university in terms of job-readiness, and concludes that the university is not essential for a successful life/career.
And don’t get me started on Paul Ryan . . . .
The Tampa Bay Times had a Sunday feature this week with data about four top Florida U’s (USF is in Tampa). Looking at the top one- UF in the many categories they still have a long ways to go to have the same peer group of entering students. btw- reporting weighted gpa’s seems a bit ludicrous because the county area HS’s top two students have weighted gpa’s ranging from around a 5 to over 7(!) based on AP/IB/Honors courses available to students-according to the spring graduation supplement in the last few years. Wonder what the unweighted gpa would be (as is used by UW)?
btw- the weather is not all that great in hotter, more humid FL if you compare Madison’s summers with Florida’s summers. Faculty live in a place year round.
We tried to do our bit the day we left the state- but the recall didn’t work, sigh. Hopefully the public schools can maintain their excellence in WI despite the politicians. Regarding education there is a certain name- first or last- I dislike in both states.
@wis75 Each school district in Florida can use a different method to calculate weighted GPA. However, all of the Florida state public universities are using the same method, which allows you to compare freshman GPA’s (between Florida schools). It’s useful for the state scorecards (as weighted GPA “bakes in” course rigor), but not so much for comparing UF to Georgia Tech (which uses a different calculation for weighted GPA) or UW-Madison.
Weather is a personal preference, but right now, I’m much preferring the weather in North Florida, vs Madison. It will be in the 70’s this week in Gainesville, not so much in Madison. 
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/03/01/report-controversial-wisconsin-tenure-survey
Looks like UF will need to move fast and build a satellite faculty recruiting office in Madison! (Lets just not tell them about how the state of Florida been toying with the idea of abolishing tenure all together… 
…that will be our little secret).
A big chunk of UW-Madison’s current budget problems are self-inflicted. When UW admins, students and professors went all-in with the anti-Walker protests and lost repeatedly, it is only natural for him to hit back against those most opposed to him. If the weakening of tenure drives some of the professors that protested against out of the UW system, the better off Walker is. The strategy worked for Mayor Curley in Boston.
The most of the state seems to agree with him as, except for some academics, there has been little effective backlash. Expect much of the funding and tenure issues to end once Walker is out of office.
As for UF catching up to UW in the rankings, I doubt that will happen. UF currently has a lower admissions rate (47% vs 50%), yield rate (52% vs 41%), and slightly higher class ranks, and but slightly lower average SAT and ACT (29 vs 30) scores. Despite the parity of the student body, university rankings rarely significantly move because so much of the ranking is tied to items like size of the endowment or measures of academic prestige that are very difficult to change. It is more likely that a school like UIUC, which is experiencing significant budget woes coupled with an incompetent administration and poor state governance, will fall in the rankings rather than a school rising.
Moreover, UF historically has not played the ranking game like some other colleges. It practices “holistic” admissions and places less emphasis on test scores than most schools, resulting in average standardized testing scores lower than what they could potentially be. The story of kids accepted to Brown and Penn but rejected from UF are not myths.
UF also does not recruit out of state. OOS kids only make up 3% of UF students, with a state imposed cap of 10%. On the other hand, Wisconsin Madison aggressively recruits OOS students. In 2015, the school voted to lift the OOS cap which stood at 27.5%. Note that this 27.5% cap does not include kids from Minnesota which has a tuition reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin. The result is that there are lot a smart FIBS in Madtown, bringing up the average ACT scores and rankings.
watch it, zin.
Dems fighting’ words to Gator’s ears. 
:(( Thats It! You and me @Zinhead In the playground at 3pm and don’t chicken out! Trying to use fancy figures and logic stuff to confuse me…
Salaries: UF http://data.chronicle.com/134130/University-of-Florida/
Wisconsin http://data.chronicle.com/240444/University-of-Wisconsin-at-Madison/
Florida has higher faculty salaries and a generally better reputation on giving raises without counter offers.
If UF seriously wanted to move up in the rankings, they could probably jump up a few slots by:
1 - Placing more emphasis on the ACT/SAT scores in admissions, and increase the average test scoring.
2 - Allowing the individual colleges some say in admissions decisions. That would let the colleges fund raise from alumni more effectively.
3 - Go after high stat OOS students with more recruiting and added merit scholarships. If UW relied on in-state kids as much as UF does, thier stats would be markedly lower.
4 - Raise in-state tuition beyond the current low, low rates.
5- Do a better job competing with FSU for in-state funds. The only thing that has kept FSU ahead of USF all these years is the fact that they hire ex-politicians to be their presidents, and those guys are great at pulling money from the legislature at the expense of the rest of the universities in Florida even if they don’t know anything about academics.
Otherwise, in order to move up, you need to hope that someone else stumbles and falls, much like UIUC or Mizzou is currently doing. UW-Madison might have a stumble, but I don’t think they will fall.
UF is very close to UW-Madision, ahead in some metrics, behind in others. From US News’ rankings of Public Universities:
That’s an impressive group of universities. Does it really matter if you’re #11 on this list or #16?
UF want’s to be a top 10 public university, but it’s using a longer term strategy that’s not based directly on any metric used by US News. The “Preeminence” campaign is about investing in “people and programs”. This includes adding 500 endowed faculty positions, increasing the number of scholarships, hiring additional faculty(92 so far), and identify “focus areas” for investment.
I wouldn’t be surprised if UF drops to 16 in this list, or moves up to 13. As long as they (and UW-Madision) are doing the right things, the rankings will take care of itself.
But research funding at UW is nearly 50% higher than at UF. Many profs would trade some income for better research funding and resources. https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingBySource&ds=herd
I have heard anecdotal information from parents at our HS about UW. Many have stated their disapproval of/disappointment in what’s going on with our neighbor to the north. Based on this, I thought application numbers would be down this year for UW. Wrong. Based on Naviance data to date, we have the exact same number of applicants as last year. Pretty big number, too, just shy of 3 figures.
UIUC and the State of Illinois is doing a great job recruiting for the surrounding Big 10 schools.
^Absolutely true. Just checked, and their apps have remained at the same level as well. About twice the number as UW.
I know this is a Wisconsin thread, but I just wanted to chime in on UIUC, since it has been mentioned several times in this thread. The greater Chicago area is filled with strong students. One of the reasons many in-state students have begun flocking to surrounding Big 10 schools is the competitiveness of the UIUC Engineering and Business programs. Many applicants are not admitted to their desired major and often have to look elsewhere. UIUC Engineering admitted about 1600 students last year…Business about 600.
UIUC had a record number of applicants for Fall 2016…37,000. In case you are interested here’s a link about it.
UIUC is an excellent school for Engineering and Business. However, the big knock against it is that non-resident aliens take up too many slots, particularly in Engineering and Business. The following link shows the ethnic background of UIUC engineering graduates for 2015. Out of 2012 engineering grads, 23 percent were foreign nationals. For computer science and computer engineering, more than 30 percent of the grads were foreign nationals.
There were two threads posted here a few weeks ago by Illinois natives that were denied entry to the UIUC CS/CE program. Both had ACT scores of 34 or higher. These students were in the top 1 percent of ACT scorers, with apparently excellent grades and transcripts, but were denied at UIUC in favor of foreign nationals.
I think some of the reason for this, and for Illinois residents looking elsewhere is because UIUC is looking for money from OOS and Int’l students. It’s also one of the most expensive in-state tuition in the country. Only 55-60% from in-state (according to link above)? That’s shocking.
The success of the engineering and business programs is clearly a factor driving students out of the state.
Additional factors include:
That Sunday article put UF ahead of USF in all areas I believe- huge difference in endowment plus the lead in other areas.
UW will start using Common Ap next year. Also jacking merit aid. http://hechingerreport.org/why-uw-madisons-plan-to-become-bigger-merit-aid-player-is-bad-for-u-s-public-higher-education/
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/uw-madison-joins-common-application-for-freshman-class/article_32f77f47-a478-50bc-9140-74687bbe64c6.html